The 2023 MotoGP season will be one of the most exciting in recent years. Teams changing manufacturers, new brands entering the championship, many driver changes… but, moreover, there are also new signings in the technical area of the teams.
Of the 22 riders who will make up the starting grid for next season, nine will have a new track engineer.
The first is in the box of the reigning world champions: Ducati. Although Enea Bastianini expected to move to the factory team under the guidance of Alberto Giribuola, his technician at Gresini Racing, the Italian engineer has decided to move to KTM, to take on a role with more responsibilities. Marco Rigamonti will take his place, who until now had worked with Johann Zarco.
But this move started a domino effect. Pramac had to hire a new technical manager and opted for Massimo Branchini, recently crowned Moto2 world champion with Augusto Fernandez.
Gresini also had to fill a vacant seat and decided to hire one of the most reliable technicians on the grid: Frankie Carchedi. The Anglo-Italian found himself out of work overnight following Suzuki’s decision to leave the championship.
Carchedi will make his Ducati debut alongside Fabio Di Giannantonio, while Donatello Giovanotti, the former number 49 technician, will move to the other side of the garage with newcomer Alex Marquez.
Enea Bastianini will make his debut with Marco Rigamonti as technical coach
The other Suzuki track engineer, José Manuel Cazeaux, has found refuge in the Aprilia factory garage and will have to say goodbye to Alex Rins to move on to work with Maverick Viñales. However, it won’t be a painful transition for the Argentine, who has already worked with the Roses-based rider when he was riding the GSX-RR at the start of his MotoGP career.
The former Hamamatsu duo, Joan Mir and Alex Rins, will compete on a Honda in 2023. Mir will do so in the Repsol garage, where he will be welcomed by Ramón Aurín, a regular on the second RC213V. Rins, on the other hand, will work with Christophe Bourguignon in Team LCR.
Honda will also keep the other two track engineers: Santi Hernández will continue to accompany Marc Marquez and Giacomo Guidotti will do the same with Takaaki Nakagami.
KTM will welcome three new riders to its ranks. The first of them, Jack Miller, who will occupy the second RC16 of the official team, brings with him his man in Ducati: Christian Pupulin.
Pol Espargaró, on the other hand, will again share his side of the garage with Paul Trevathan, who had been his technician in his previous stint at KTM. Finally, Augusto Fernández will make his debut in the premier class with Alex Merhand.
Jose Manuel Cazeaux was trained by Maverick Viñales in Suzuki in his stage in Suzuki
The RNF satellite structure, which will pass from Yamaha to Aprilia in 2023, will have two new riders and two new technicians: Miguel Oliveira will race with Giovanni Mattarollo, until now Viñales’ engineer, and Raúl Fernández will race with Noe Herrera, with whom he was vice -champion in Moto2 in 2021.
Yamaha will not make any changes to its ranks. Fabio Quartararo will continue with his inseparable teammate Diogo Gubellini, while Franco Morbidelli will race with Patrick Primmer. There will also be no changes in the VR46 team, where Luca Marini will work with David Muñoz and Marco Bezzecchi with Matteo Flamigni.
Among the other riders who will not change track engineers are Pecco Bagnaia with Cristian Gabarrini at Ducati, Brad Binder with Andrés Madrid at KTM, Aleix Espargaró with Antonio Jiménez at Aprilia and Jorge Martín with Daniele Romagnoli at Ducati Pramac.
MotoGP 2023 | All pilots track engineers
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